Property owner Doug Melching said a meeting with the DEQ made it obvious that his company’s request for a dredging permit raised issues with state environmental regulators. The company did not have immediate answers for the state’s questions, he said.

Doug Melching

“We knew from the get-go that this (application) was not going to pass,” Melching said of the withdrawal. “We need to properly address the state’s concerns. This is very complicated and we will be meeting with the DEQ later this week.”

Melching Inc. purchased the former Sappi paper mill property last year for $2.3 million and agreed to deed restrictions that limits redevelopment to industrial uses and controls environmental investigation of the property. Melching is a Nunica-based demolition company that has started removing a portion of the more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing facilities on the 120-acre site.

Melching told The Chronicle that his company continues to pursue plans for the development of a maritime-based business park that uses the deep-water port capabilities of Muskegon Lake. He expects the dredging permit to be rewritten and resubmitted.

“There is a huge amount of stuff going on with the property,” Melching said of the difficulties he has encountered with his redevelopment plans. “We are still going forward, but we will be making some adjustments.”

In the meantime, citizens who are concerned with the environmental conditions on the property and Lakeside Neighborhood residents worried about the types of industrial uses that could go on the Sappi site have raised issues with the Muskegon City Commission and state environmental regulators.

Save Our Shoreline – a longstanding Muskegon Lake advocacy group – had a public meeting in which citizens expressed their opposition to industrial redevelopment of the site and demanded environmental studies of the site. SOS President Cynthia Price said her group was ready to oppose the Melching dredge permit at the March 29 public hearing.

“We were looking forward to the public meeting to have an opportunity to discuss our concerns with the property owner,” Price said.

At a meeting last month, the SOS group heard from concerned citizens about the future direction of the Sappi property. Suggestions ranged from a citizen petition to ask that the property be rezoned from “heavy industrial” to “waterfront marine” all the way to a suggestion that the city of Muskegon use “eminent domain” to take the property to protect the public and the Muskegon Lake environment.

Melching has hired Triangle Associates of Grand Rapids to work on an industrial redevelopment plan for the Sappi property as the demolition work continues. The property owner in February unsuccessfully asked the Muskegon Planning Commission for a special use permit to store construction materials on the far west end of the Sappi site.